In re Clearview AI Consumer Privacy Litigation

This class action consolidates multiple cases alleging that Clearview AI unlawfully collected and used biometric identifying information for people across the country. The class-action complaint alleges that Clearview covertly scraped more than three billion photographs of facial images of people from social media and other websites, that Clearview harvested the unique biometric identifying information of those people and created a searchable database that allowed users to identify people, and that Clearview then sold access to this database without the knowledge or consent of the people whose information it had captured. On behalf of a nationwide class and subclasses of Illinois, Virginia, California, and New York residents, the plaintiffs sued for damages and injunctive relief, alleging violations of their rights under the Illinois Biometric Information Protection Act, Virginia, California, and New York law, and unjust enrichment. The plaintiffs sought monetary damages and injunctive relief, among other things.

Class counsel and the defendants agreed to a settlement under which the class members would release all their claims in exchange for a stake in Clearview’s future business. The court granted preliminary approval of the settlement in June 2024.

On behalf of two nationwide class members, Public Citizen filed objections urging the district court to deny final approval of the proposed settlement. The objections explain that the proposed settlement is not fair, adequate, and reasonable, as required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23, because it effectively requires class members to endorse the very activity that they alleged was unlawful, and because class members may receive no value and no injunctive relief in exchange for a sweeping release of claims, including claims outside the scope of this lawsuit.